Foundational issues are supremely important. I pray to God that in the several posts about this topic that I strike a gentle tone of loving discussion on this vital issue. However, on this one post I intend to lay the one foundation that we must all agree upon. I ask one question: which is highest priority, faithful obedience to God’s commands or relevance for the sake of reaching the lost? Or phrased another way: What wins out when asking “what does God command us to do” and asking “what is the best way to attract those who are rejecting church” gives us two contradictory answers? Shall we obey God or shall we be relevant?
Now many would object to the soundness of this question. Perhaps they would say that in many important instances we do not get contradictory answers to those questions. I readily agree with this statement. I have no doubt that a person could show me many places where our churches could become stronger in outreach without violating a single command of God. However, to use my illustration from the last post, I am not all that worried about the man working on my house being able to show me walls which he can safely knock down. There certainly are some. What I am more worried about is that the man can rightly identify the walls he must not knock down. And so also with the man who would begin changing the church. I happily agree there are valid things to change. But before the church gives you the sledge hammer and its blessing, are you aware that there are things that you must not change? Are we agreed on this one foundational principle, that what God commands weighs more than what either you or I think would be useful for reaching the lost?
One verse of scripture that is so remarkable to me is 1 Corinthians 15:34. It says,
1Co Become sober-minded as you ought, and stop sinning; for some have no knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.
Here we have a very sincere concern for lost souls. However his command to them so that they can reach these lost souls is not what we expect. If your pastor stood before the church to rebuke them for the lost souls around them you would likely expect him to be urging you to greater efforts in evangelism. For example you’d expect him to urge you to knock on more doors, invite more people to church, share the gospel more, invite more people to your home, etc. These are the types of things you’d expect. However, Paul says “stop sinning.” What Paul says is the obstacle in this particular case is the people’s sin. Nothing repels unbelievers like hypocrisy, disobedience to the commands of God by those who profess Him as Lord. No efforts we make will be sufficient to outweigh the negatives of hypocrisy.
What we need to understand as a foundational principle is moving towards disobedience is a move away from reaching the lost. However rare we might think the choice will be, we must affirm together that we must never disobey God’s commands for the sake of relevance no matter how promising it might seem for the salvation of souls. If you disagree with this, your mistake is not over evangelism. Your error is concerning God’s authority over your life and the life of the church. Your mistake is over the authority of scripture. In this aspect, we must all agree.
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